Regular Contributor: Any contribution to this thread
Top Contributor: At least 10 contributions, this is my discretion. Just because you have 10 contributions does not make you an automatic top contributor
THE Top Contributor: This is purely off my own discretion. Every month, I’ll decide on a new THE Top Contributor and will recognize them here. ALSO, those whom I recognize as top contributors will be my go to guys for making decisions. If they think that a card should be removed, I’ll probably defer to their judgment.

1) Explore target meta - Go to locals, talk to people, watch and comment their duels, make notes.
2) Playtest Main - Playtest as much as you can against as many different decks possible. After some testing you'll realise what decks are problematic to you in which aspect. Again, make notes; try to figure out which cards in your main are useless/less useful/not necessary against certain matchup.
NOTE: If you realise that a card is often labeled as "useless" or "less useful", you might want to remove it from your main deck
3) Build side pool - Literally gather all the cards you have/can easily get that could be a good side against any decks you might encounter at target tournament.
4) Organise side pool - try to figure out the pros and cons of every card you picked in step 3. Make notes; try to write down all of those pros and cons for every single card and write which decks can you hurt using that.
5) Side choices - Now look at your notes from steps 2 and 4. Using those, try to find a side replacement for every card you labeled "useless" against certain matchup. After that, do the same for "less useful" and "not necessary" to your liking, depending on how hard certain matchup might be. Make notes about your preliminary side ideas. DO THIS FOR EVERY MATCHUP YOU'RE LIKELY TO FACE.
6) Side skeleton - go through your notes from step 5; you'll realise that certain cards are repetitive (for example, you might realise that some card is great against Dragons and Mermails). Put those in a pile. Make notes about which decks are covered.
7) Beta side - if you feel that "pile of side cards" from previous step is lacking answers for some important matchup, feel free to add from side pool to your liking. After this, you should have some side-like fat pack around 20-25 cards big.
8) Cleanup - look at your notes from steps 2, 4 and 5. If you have "sided" too many cards for certain matchup (too many sided cards->you have too many cards you want to side in while lacking space opened by siding out "useless" or "less useful"), try to move unnecessary cards out. What cards are unnecessary? While siding against certain matchup, you always have to keep in mind one thing; you're trying to sabotage your opponent targeting one aspect of his deck or you're trying to side in cards that give you edge over certain decks making you stronger. First part, sabotage, usually means you want to hit one spot using everything you've got. For example, if you're siding against Six Samurai, you either want to stop big synchros from coming (Chain dis., Black horn...) or you want to make a big mess once they come (Kinetic, Snowman...). Siding Chain dis., Black horn, Kinetic and Snowman together is a bit much for your main to handle, you're going for Kinetic & Snowman or Chain & Horn (this was rough example). Following this example try to move out any spares.

Chin Beat Tier 0!!!

__________________O F F I C I A L T R U S T E D S O U R C E

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[21:00:23] Mike: I'm gonna hit up Pojo; could do with an aneurysm

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Originally Posted by YugiohKing9131

I mean my build works for me. I've been complimented on the creativity multiple times.